What followed was an astonishing,
12-year-long odyssey through the Georgia court system.
Remarkably enough, however, that
tumultuous court case -- a staggeringly convoluted legal tangle that makes Jarndyce v Jarndyce (the celebrated and
endlessly strung out legal case that forms the heart of Charles Dickens'
immortal novel of British jurisprudence, Bleak
House) read like a dispute over a parking ticket -- seemed to have ended
only a couple of years after it got started.
The
end appeared to be in sight when mighty Emory University, one of America's most
highly regarded institutions of higher learning, reviewed the entire record in
detail and then agreed to pay Dr. Murtagh an eye-catching $1.6 million
settlement, in return for his promise to remain silent about the alleged
reprisals.
Soon after agreeing to pay out this
enormous sum, however, Emory decided that Dr. Murtagh was not remaining silent about the alleged reprisals . . . and went to
court to get its money back.
The ensuing legal dust-up -- now
entering its 13th year -- wound up costing Dr. Murtagh dearly. In addition to paying hundreds of thousands
of dollars in attorneys' fees in recent years, the sleep specialist often found
it difficult to find hospital employment as a physician, according to his
attorney, noted Atlanta defense lawyer and arbitration expert Mark Spix.
"Jim Murtagh has spent many years in
the wilderness," says Spix, who crafted the elegantly simple legal argument
that prevailed in the Georgia Appeals Court last July. "He was essentially
blacklisted by the university for his whistle blowing, and he soon discovered
that when potential employers called Emory for references, they were either
ignored for months a time . . . or they were told things that prevented Dr.
Murtagh from working as a hospital doctor.
"I really don't know how he managed
to hang on through so many legal defeats and through so many long stints of
unemployment. But he did -- and now, at
long last, he has gained a toehold on justice.
In my opinion, his legal victory last July is going to help protect hospital
patients, taxpayers and jobs in the future.
"This is a huge victory for hospital
patients everywhere."
Like Mark Spix, veteran whistle blower counselor and expert Donald R.
Soeken, LCSW-C, Ph.D., says he continues to be amazed by Dr. Murtagh's tenacity
and his "willingness to put his entire life on the line" as a truth-teller who
insisted on speaking out about the alleged research-funding fraud at Emory
University and Grady Hospital.
"The remarkable thing about Jim
Murtagh is that he didn't just survive,"
says Dr. Soeken, the founder of Integrity International and the Whistleblower
Support Fund and a professional counselor whose efforts to help U.S. whistle blowers
have been written about in the New York Times
and many other national publications since the 1970s. "While enduring a series of setbacks that
would have disabled or destroyed many people, Murtagh actually found the
strength to assist other
truth-tellers.
"As a founder and current leader of
the International Association of Whistle Blowers [along with tobacco industry
whistle blower Jeff Wigand, aka "The Insider"]," for example, Dr. Murtagh has
been absolutely tireless in fighting to reform peer review practices in
hospitals. In my view, his continuing
advocacy in that arena alone qualifies him as an authentic American hero."
While the ongoing legal battle in Murtagh v. Emory University, et al seems
certain to have a major impact on hospital physician peer review, it could also
play a key role in helping to protect due process in legal disputes that
involve formal arbitration, according to attorney Spix.
Describing the lengthy arbitration
hearings that have accompanied the case (which has so far seen more than five
years of arbitration-wrangling), Spix calls it "perhaps the most egregious example of manipulating and
distorting the arbitration process in the history of the U.S. legal system."
Make no mistake, says attorney Spix,
a nationally recognized expert on arbitration: because maintaining a reliable
and even-handed means of dispute resolution is essential to commerce,
protecting due process during arbitration is "absolutely vital" to the economic
well-being of the entire nation.
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